The subject matter discussed in the background section should not be assumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in the background section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the background section or associated with the subject matter of the background section should not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the prior art. The subject matter in the background section merely represents different approaches, which in and of themselves may also be inventions.
Biometric pattern matching includes use of fingerprints to register or identify a user. A pattern-under-test is compared against some other pattern, such as a preregistered pattern retrieved from a pattern storage, which may include a trusted data storage. The comparison indicates a “match” or a “no match” condition with further processing dependent upon that condition. That further processing may result in access to additional resources, or enhanced access to existing resources, or a host of other consequences subsequent to the evaluation of matching or not matching.
In some systems, the pattern storage may include patterns from multiple sources of patterns. The multiple sources may include different patterns from one user (e.g., fingerprints from different fingers), different patterns from multiple users (index fingerprints of two or more users), or a combination of these examples, among other possibilities.
A system may perform a matching process in which a particular pattern-under-test is compared against the patterns in the pattern storage. This matching process could be implemented in serial fashion, selecting individual unique patterns from the pattern storage one at a time and then doing the comparison against the pattern-under-test. For some applications, it may be acceptable to stop the matching process upon a first match condition.
In other applications, such as absolute identification of a user or in some types of dynamic registration, suspending the matching process upon a first match may result in errors. It may be desirable to provide a matching process that determines a conforming pattern match to a pattern-under-test from a set of matching patterns in a pattern storage, including instances when multiple patterns match the pattern-under-test.